Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Waiting Continues...

Allie is doing fine and sleeping well in the CICU unit at UAB hospital. She has had her eyes open a little bit this morning, but due to the sedation, she doesn't really know what is going on and for the most part has her eyes closed and is sleeping. Luckily, Allie is used to noise and lights when she sleeps from her NICU days, so perhaps she is resting better than we would if we had to sleep in the unit.Surgery didn't go exactly as planned yesterday. Prior to actually beginning surgery, in the Operating Room they attempted to place an arterial line in Allie to more accurately monitor her blood pressure during surgery. Allie's arteries are very small and they could not get the line in- despite attempts on several places on her body. They had to stop and allow her to rest for the evening and wait for one of the newborn specialists to come in Thursday morning to insert the line. According to the surgeon, this is a rare situation that happens at UAB maybe only a couple times a year. Thanks to my good friend, Christena, we were able to update the blog while we waited yesterday. We will try to do that again today, but I wanted to drop in a note before we headed back to the CICU. A quick - but huge - note of THANKS. I'm - again - touched by the many stories of how many people are praying for Allie and for us. So many of you I have never met before and I'm overwhelmed by your love and concern for this little girl. I knew having a baby would change my life, but I never knew to the extent and she is only 4 1/2 months old!!! I can't imagine what the future holds for all of us, but I'm so excited about it. Thank you so much for the prayers. You have given us strength. Thank you.In gratitude,Sandy

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All About Me

Just call me Allie

I was born on November 19, 2007 and was 6 weeks early and really small for my "age". I weighed 2 pounds and 5 ounces and was 13 1/4 inches long. I didn't come home until I was 72 days old. When I was 4 1/2 months old, I had Open Heart Surgery and was in the hospital in Birmingham for 15 days.

When I was about 8 months old, I began wearing bi-lateral hearing aids because I have a mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Oh, and I have Trisomy 21, which means I have more chromosomes than most of you. It is also called Down syndrome.